


reguri week: coda

by loopid



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, no editing we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:48:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26771671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loopid/pseuds/loopid
Summary: He learns that people who were soulmates could write things on their skin, and it would show up on their partner’s body. So Blue tries writing something in every language he knows.Soulmate AU ft. polyglot!Blue written for Reguri Week 2020.
Relationships: Ookido Green | Blue Oak/Red
Comments: 10
Kudos: 151





	reguri week: coda

**Author's Note:**

> My little language obsession is showing xD There is a Bulbapedia article that lists Pokemon locations in relation to the real world, so I took the local languages from there. 
> 
> -
> 
> Est-ce que tu veux être mon meilleur ami? = Do you want to be my best friend?  
> Spasibo/Спасибо = Thanks  
> Snova/Cнова = Again

Blue’s home is Pallet Town, even if he’s only lived there for a quarter of his life. His grandfather, Professor Oak, is a world-renowned linguist, and he travels around the world to give talks and do research. As soon as Blue had finished kindergarten, Professor Oak had whisked him and Daisy off to new countries, living out of hotels and guest rooms.

Of course, being the grandson of a linguist comes with its perks. Blue’s trilingual by the time he turns six, and he’s seen more landmarks than any kid his age could ever dream of.

Not that he knows many kids his age, though. Blue remembers his first friend back in Pallet Town, a quiet boy named Red. They’d been neighbors. Sometimes, Red’s mom played the piano when he visited. Blue hadn’t been old enough to recognize that he wouldn’t see Red again for years.

-

He starts reading chapter books when he’s seven. Daisy already has some of her own books, and sometimes, there just isn’t time to find stories that Blue would like. But kids get bored easily, and it’s when Blue’s reading through one of her books that he stumbles upon a word.

_Soulmate._

He spends the rest of the afternoon in a hotel room in Nimbasa City, reading about mysterious words appearing on girls’ wrists, flowers and hearts showing up on boys’ knees. He learns that people who were soulmates could write things on their skin, and it would show up on their partner’s body.

Soulmates are cool, Blue decides. When Daisy and Professor Oak get back, he asks them all about soulmates. Professor Oak tells him that soulmates are like a best friend. Daisy giggles when Blue brings it up. “Soulmates are so romantic!” she gushes. “My friend in Kalos says she found hers. She wrote something on herself and it showed up on a boy’s arm. She says they might get married!”

Daisy is a whole teenager now, so Blue nods along seriously. She notices him holding her book and she spends that night going through all of the symbolism with him. Professor Oak falls asleep early on the other bed, so Daisy’s voice quietens as she and Blue pore over it. She says something about love triangles and there’s a word that Blue doesn’t know – unrequited.

It’s way past his bedtime when she starts yawning. “I hope we both find our soulmates someday.” She closes the book and leaves it on the nightstand. “Goodnight, Blue. I love you.”

-

Blue tosses and turns that night, his mind whirling with all the new stuff Daisy told him about. Finally, his curiosity gets the best of him. He creeps out of bed and rummages around for a pen. Then he goes into the bathroom for more light.

He uncaps the pen and for a moment, it hovers over his skin as Blue thinks about what to write. He wonders what his soulmate would want to hear. Daisy’s words echo in his head, and he gets an idea.

 _I love you_ , he writes on his arm.

He stares at the ink in the cold light. Nothing happens.

He turns his wrists out, flexes his fingers, checks his calves. Nothing.

The ink is dry when Blue starts to feel tired. Maybe his soulmate was sleeping, he thinks, as he waddles back to his bed. He’ll try again tomorrow.

-

They visit Kalos a year later. Blue already knows the language, so Professor Oak lets him and Daisy explore the streets on their own while he does his work. The markets are always a lot of fun, but today, Daisy says she’s visiting her friend’s house.

Blue comes along, because it was probably more exciting than Professor Oak’s work. It’s at Daisy’s friend’s house that he meets a boy named Vermeil. He’s her friend’s little brother, and he has a lot of cool toys that he shares with Blue.

Blue doesn’t know the word for soulmate. “ _Est-ce que tu veux être mon meilleur ami?_ ” he tries instead.

He only gets to see Vermeil twice again before Professor Oak has to leave for another region. _Je t’aime_ , Blue writes on his arm during their last night in Kalos. Nothing happens.

-

They visit Alto Mare in Johto, and Alamos Town in Sinnoh. _Ti voglio bene_ , Blue writes on his arm, because he’d heard it in a song. _Te quiero_ , he writes, after watching the motel’s TV shows.

Professor Oak has a lot of events to go to. _Te iubesc. Eu te amo._ Blue’s nine years old when he starts doing correspondence classes in his spare time. They go back to Kanto in the summer, but only for a week, and it’s nowhere near Pallet Town. They’re staying in Kanto’s Cameran Palace instead. It’s all weathered halls and high ceilings and long windows, and even though Blue misses Pallet Town, exploring the vast castle isn’t all that bad.

Sometimes, Blue runs into a boy. He’s older than him, but his sharp eyes make Blue feel a sort of . . . way. Rufus, that was his name. Blue thinks he’s a prince. 

_Ich liebe dich_ , Blue tries, because maybe if they were soulmates, then Rufus would talk to him. The next time he runs into Rufus, Blue tries to get a glimpse of his skin under all the elegant clothing he wears. But there’s no ink on his hands, no harsh letters, nothing.

-

They go to Crown City in Sinnoh to watch a Pokémon Baccer Tournament for Blue’s tenth birthday. Blue has seats near the front, and the person next to him is a boy around his age with black hair. He cheers loudly, and when he catches Blue watching, he flashes him a big smile. When they get back to the hotel room, Blue scribbles _Ik hou van jou_ on his arm, wondering if the boy would see it.

Blue wakes up in the hotel room the next day to hear Daisy on the phone. He has his back turned to her, but something roots Blue to the spot, not letting him show he’s awake. She must be talking to a friend, and it’s when she mentions soulmates that Blue really listens in.

“Some people just don’t have soulmates, Erika.” Then she adds, “Or they never find them.”

Blue tries to not think about how he hasn’t gotten a single foreign mark of ink on his skin.

Daisy sighs. “My parents weren’t soulmates, either.” She lowers her voice. “I haven’t told my brother yet, but I think that’s why they left and never came back.”

An odd surge of emotions wells up in Blue’s gut. Something like desperation rises above them all. Blue wants to find his soulmate. Maybe if he did, their kids wouldn’t have to keep moving around. Maybe if he did, their kids would actually have friends.

On the phone, Daisy’s still talking. But Blue doesn’t want to know what would happen if she found out that he heard her conversation, so he wills himself to fall back asleep again.

-

They go to a few more places around Sinnoh after that. _Jag älskar dig_. Blue celebrates his eleventh birthday in Snowpoint City. _Ég elska þig_. Professor Oak’s research takes him far and wide, all the way up to Sinnoh’s coldest peaks. He’s visiting a place so remote that the three of them have to walk through miles of snow on foot. When they finally arrive at the inn in the Ten’i Village, it’s a raven-haired boy who opens the door. The hot chocolate he offers Blue is heavenly, almost as warm as the shade of his eyes. At night, when everyone’s asleep, Blue writes _Eg elskar deg_ on himself under the light of a lantern. He never sees the boy again.

When Blue’s twelve, they spend a few months in Sootopolis City at one of Professor Oak’s old colleagues’ house. She has a son named Kokkino, who takes it upon himself to teach Daisy and Blue the new alphabet. Kokkino’s bright and feisty and he takes Blue on tours of his city, pointing out all the new words. The first few weeks are great, but then Kokkino remembers he has other friends, and some of them aren’t as accepting towards Blue as Kokkino is.

Carefully, Blue writes _σ αγαπάω πολύ_ on his arm the night before Professor Oak has to leave. Blue sounds out the letters in his head – _sagapao poli_ – and lets the ink dry on his wrist. He imagines Kokkino saying the words, his voice echoing through Blue’s head. The next day, they part ways with just a quick amicable hug. The ink on Blue’s arm washes out too quickly.

-

Daisy announces she’s going back to Kanto to study when she’s older. They part ways at the airport – Daisy taking a flight to Viridian City, while Professor Oak and Blue go back to Sinnoh. This time, they’re in one of Sinnoh’s northernmost islands. They use a different alphabet here too, but it’s similar to what Kokkino taught him, and Blue learns to write in it in a few weeks.

The island doesn’t have a name – it translates instead to Resort Area. Professor Oak and Blue are staying at a villa, and it has a piano on the first floor. A lot of different faces show up at the villa to talk with the professor, but one woman sticks out in Blue’s mind. She’s tall and has long blonde hair, and sometimes she plays the piano. Her songs are often heavy and dark-sounding, but she’s clearly talented. She catches him watching her play one day, and she introduces herself as Cynthia.

Living in the same place with nothing but school to do after being on the run for so long takes its toll on Blue, though. There isn’t much to do at the resort area. He can’t play the piano, the forest in the back is apparently too dangerous, and the pools, despite being in a resort area, are always freezing. Professor Oak picks up on Blue’s sullenness, at least, and he presents Blue with a shiny new phone as a gift. When that doesn’t work, he arranges for a playdate (Blue’s thirteen now, who says that) with some boy named Lucas.

Lucas shows up at the villa, and it’s his tinkering on the piano when he arrives that reminds Blue to come downstairs to greet him. He’s shorter than Blue, with black hair and a red cap. They settle on English as a lingua franca, and Lucas says he’s a student of one of the linguists in Sinnoh, another professor named Rowan. He and Blue don’t seem to have much in common, but he’s so painfully polite that Blue finds himself inviting him back, despite everything.

Oddly enough, it’s on Blue’s fourteenth birthday that he feels a tingling over his skin. He dismisses the feeling as he falls asleep, but he sees it for certain the next morning.

It’s music. The ink is clear as day – there is musical notation on his forearm. Blue wipes the sleep away from his eyes and gawks at it again. Sure enough, there was the clef and the staff, and a short passage of notes across it. Blue can’t read music, but there’s a piano downstairs. His heart pounds as he rushes to get dressed, and at his desk, he scrambles for a piece of paper. He tries his best to copy down the foreign symbols.

When he hears the familiar piano playing, he runs downstairs. Cynthia’s there as usual, and Blue knows just enough to understand her wishing him a happy birthday.

“ _Spasibo_ ,” Blue says. Then he places the sheet of music on the stand, and stammers out the words for ‘perform’ and ‘please’.

Cynthia seems to understand him, and she plays the short melody. Something blooms in Blue’s heart. It’s so light, such a contrast to her dark songs.

“ _Snova_?” he asks, and she plays it again. Then she says something Blue doesn’t quite catch, but he recognizes the word for ‘record’ so he nods his head. He’s about to get his phone, but Cynthia takes out hers and she holds out her phone expectantly when she’s done recording the melody. Blue plugs his number into it, and the recording sends.

-

He can’t stop listening to it. The music on his arm fades away no matter how much he avoids washing where the ink is, but Blue’s just ecstatic knowing he has a soulmate at all. His mind wanders to who it could be, and the one person that bubbles up in his mind is Lucas. It did make sense – he’d heard Lucas playing the piano too. Blue tries to ignore their awkward start in his head, and after a few days, he scrawls я люблю тебя on his arm, where the music was.

The night before Lucas is supposed to visit again, the words echo in Blue’s mind. _Ya lyublyu tebya_ , he’d written. He wonders if it was Lucas who would say those words to him.

When Lucas arrives the next day, Blue can see a trail of ink under his jacket on his arms. His heart pounds for a moment, eyes blown wide. But Lucas takes off the jacket when he comes inside, and then Blue realizes the marks on Lucas’s are nowhere near the characters Blue had written the night before.

The words are out of his mouth before Blue can stop them. “Soulmate?” he asks, pointing to Lucas’s arm.

Lucas smiles warmly, oblivious to Blue’s stricken expression. “Yes.” His skin is covered in swirls of flowers and entangled vines, and also a lot of scribbles, interestingly enough. “I will meet with them later today,” he explains.

Blue tries his best to not let his disappointment show. But he’d felt so close to finding his soulmate. He’s not good company after that, and he can’t find it in himself to ask Lucas to come back another time. Two other kids show up outside the villa on their bikes when Lucas leaves. One is a tall blond boy, the other a dainty dark-haired girl. Lucas grins wider than Blue’s ever seen at them, and the three of them bike away together.

-

The Lucas situation happens too quickly for Blue to be hurt, but now with Daisy gone, Blue’s just desperate to interact with anyone. He writes on himself in all the languages he encounters. я тебе люблю. я цябе кахаю. They leave the resort area before Blue turns fifteen and his correspondence classes have picked up speed by now, so he never remembers where they’re headed. _Të dua. Seni seviyorum._

It takes another two years for something to show up on Blue’s skin. This time, it’s a mathematical equation. Blue’s hands shake as he writes it down, but he’s stumped at the graph. It looks like a square divided into four more squares. It doesn’t mean anything to him at all. He draws a question mark next to the equation on his arm, but nothing comes back.

Professor Oak’s studies take them to Galar and Alola and more small islands. Sometimes, Blue helps out the professor when he gives his talks. _Aloha wau iā 'oe. Aku cinta kamu._ They visit Forina in Hoenn when Blue turns seventeen, and despite all the peaks and valleys, the view is still beautiful. He gets a few well-wishing messages from old friends, all in different languages, and he spends the day replying to them all on the cabin bed. Then he tosses his phone on the floor and stares at the ceiling.

Even with the scenic getaway, all the birthdays spent alone still sting. He wonders if Professor Oak ever got homesick. He’s always moving and taking Blue with him. Daisy was right to go back to Kanto. When she calls to wish him a happy birthday, he almost cries. Hearing her familiar voice in their mother tongue is too much.

“Pallet Town isn’t the same without you.”

“I miss it. I miss everything.”

-

Blue picks up a few phrases from the language in Forina, and the tour guide gives him a special pen to write with. He meticulously draws out the characters on his skin. The tour guide smiles at him and pronounces it as, “ _Wǒ ài nǐ._ ”

Professor Oak’s hair is almost all grey but he keeps on traveling. Blue’s taller than him by now, and he starts going to press conferences with him too. He makes friends with other linguists and locals in the places they visit. One shows him how to write _Ani ohev otcha_ and a few months later, another one shows him _Main tumase pyaar karata hoon_. Blue tries his best to keep up with all the new writing systems but there are only so many languages he can keep in his mind.

The media gets hold of Professor Oak’s new assistant, or so they call him, and they have a field day. Articles about him make it home to Kanto, and Daisy’s laughter echoes through the phone as she scrolls through particularly embarrassing headlines (“This Linguist’s Son Is Hotter than You’d Expect!” “Top Ten Reasons Why I’d Simp for Blue Oak!”).

Blue ignores them, and focuses on setting up for the professor’s show later that night. They’re somewhere between Johto and Sinnoh, and that night, he learns _volim te_ and _kocham cię_. Both go on his forearm and both return no answer. The next day, he and Professor Oak fly to Dahara City in Kalos. It would be nice to be somewhere with a familiar language once again, Blue thinks, but they speak something totally different in Dahara.

Dahara is a huge city with towering skyscrapers, but it is still in Kalos, so Blue gets by with what he knows of that language. When Professor Oak has the day off, Blue goes takes the free time to explore the city and the locals are more than happy to help. A shopkeeper gives him a paper with the words Blue’s looking for, and he pronounces them as, “ _Ana bahebak_.”

The thing about flying so much is that Blue has too much time to think. He’s almost eighteen now, he’s almost done his correspondence courses, he’s almost ready to go back to Kanto. On one flight, he learns _Mahal kita_ , and tries to figure out how Professor Oak even got the funding for all these trips. On another, he learns _Saranghae_ , and wonders if he’d missed his soulmate in all those cities and towns he’s visited.

-

Professor Oak makes a stop in New Bark Town in Johto, days before Blue’s eighteenth birthday. With language learning comes a knack for geography, and when Blue sees the little lake on the east side of the town, he knows following the water would lead him back to Kanto.

So he sits next to it all by himself with the afternoon sun in the sky, and he exists. The clouds reflect in the clear water, and the wind whistles through the reeds. Blue thinks about the countless things he’s written on his arms, and the melody and equation that came back. Music and math were universal languages, and if his soulmate had understood anything in any of the languages he’s scrawled on his arms, they would have replied somehow.

Had there been a language that Blue missed? Blue doesn’t know if he can live the rest of his life as a nomad. He can’t even quantify how homesick he is. His memories of Pallet Town are foggy, but he misses Daisy, and he misses the red rooftops and the green grass and the blue river. Blue’s fluent in about five languages now, but Kanto was where it all began. His first words in his old house, his first sentences playing among flowers –

He always has something to write with on his person. This time, it’s a special calligraphy marker from – somewhere, he doesn’t remember – but he uncaps it and puts the tip to his skin like he’d done so many times before. This has to work. 

_Ai shiteru._

_I love you._

His heart’s racing and his hands tremble, but the characters come back to him so easily it’s like he’d never left at all. The marker ink is shiny on his skin. It feels like an eternity in the seconds that pass.

Then, a reply appears on his arm.

-

Blue could cry, really. But the whole thing about not realizing he hadn’t tried his mother tongue – it didn’t matter now. He’s eighteen and the flight over Mt. Silver to Viridian has never been longer. He’d thanked Professor Oak for everything in Johto, and Daisy would be picking him up in Kanto. Then they’d go back home together and maybe Blue would find his soulmate, finally.

Everything’s changed in Kanto, but somehow, it still feels familiar. Daisy squeals when he spots him, and as Pallet Town comes into view, everything comes rushing back. Dinner at his old house makes him feel like a kid again. Late in the night, Daisy notices his forearms, and he spills it all – from when he’d learned the word soulmate in that Unovan hotel to when he’d found his soulmate’s language in Johto.

The next day, Blue takes a solo tour of Pallet Town. It’s an easy cycle – Pallet Town is almost square-shaped, so following the grid meant Blue would come back exactly to his house. Walking around again fills up all the cracks in his memory, and he’s impressed he even remembers faces from so long ago.

One sticks out in his mind – a young boy, black hair and red hat. Neighbor.

His feet carry him to the house next door to his, and he knocks. Faint piano music bleeds out through the door, but it stops. Whoever was playing must have been alone inside.

It takes a while for Blue to put a name to the face in his mind. Red, that was it. He was looking for Red. But when the door opens, Blue’s speechless.

Black hair. Red hat. The man at the door, though, he’s tall and broad and stunningly attractive. If everyone Blue had liked when he was younger melded into one person, this would’ve been him. He has to take a step back.

“I’m looking for Red?” he stammers.

The man’s lips quirk upwards and he points to himself.

Blue just gawks at him. The man takes it for confusion and he makes a writing gesture. Blue takes out his calligraphy pen and when he turns back, the man has a clipboard in his hand. He scribbles something on it quickly and hands it to Blue.

_I’m Red. Are you Blue?_

“You remember me?" At Red's nod, Blue slowly says, “Yeah, I am.” He takes in the man in front of him again. Red certainly looked grown up.

Red takes the clipboard back and motions Blue inside. He starts upstairs and when Blue hesitates, he repeats the gesture with more force.

-

Going upstairs dislodges some of Blue’s oldest memories. He remembers this hall, these rooms. Red pushes open the door to his own room, and for the second time that day, Blue’s words falter.

An entire wall of his room is lined paper taped to the walls, and on them is everything Blue’s ever written on himself. He feels a jab at his side, and reads Red’s outstretched clipboard.

_Do you know what any of these mean?_

Red’s smiling mysteriously, and Blue’s heart pounds. “I do know,” he says, taking back the clipboard. And he rewrites everything.

I love you – I love you  
Je t'aime – I love you  
Ti voglio bene – I love you  
Te quiero – I love you  
Te iubesc – I love you  
Eu ti amo – I love you  
Ich liebe dich – I love you  
Ik hou van jou – I love you  
Jag älskar dig – I love you  
Ég elska þig – I love you  
Eg elskar deg – I love you  
σ αγαπάω πολύ – I love you  
я люблю тебя – I love you  
я тебе люблю – I love you  
я цябе кахаю – I love you  
Të dua – I love you  
Seni seviyorum – I love you  
Aloha wau iā 'oe – I love you  
Aku cinta kamu – I love you  
我爱你– I love you  
אני אוהב אותך – I love you  
मैं तुमसे प्यार करता हूँ – I love you  
Volim te – I love you  
Kocham cię – I love you  
احبك انا – I love you  
Mahal kita – I love you  
사랑해– I love you  
愛してる – I love you

Red’s smile only grows when Blue hands it back. He adds something to the end of the paper.

 _Do you know what this means_? Next to it, there’s the square with four squares inside, as well as hastily written music.

Blue’s eyes widen. “This,” he says, pointing to the square, “is Pallet Town. But I don’t know about the music.”

Red’s full-on beaming now. Without warning, he takes Blue’s hand and leads him downstairs. The piano comes into view, and suddenly, all the scenes from Blue’s memories make sense. When he was younger, the piano had seemed so large, but it’s not even up to his shoulders anymore.

Blue’s mentally lamenting the loss of Red’s hand over his own, but when Red starts playing, the final piece of the puzzle clicks into place.

He’s heard the first few notes of his song so many times before from Cynthia’s recording on his phone, but Red finishes the whole song. The last note hasn’t stopped ringing out fully before Blue learns the taste of Red’s lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I'm only familiar with Romance and Germanic languages. I can read the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets, but for the later languages, I either asked people I knew who spoke the language, or used Google Translate.
> 
> The song is the Pallet Town theme. I used Eric C.'s version as inspiration but any piano cover of it will do. I really didn't mean for this to be pianist!Red part two (as in my other Reguri Week prompts), but I couldn't resist.
> 
> The names for the characters Blue meets early on were all some translated form of the word red hehe and as I mentioned in my other Reguri Week works, it isn't really a fic by me if there aren't cameos of the Sinnoh Gang xD


End file.
